Introducing Rob Delane

Rob DelaneChairman of Alpha Innovation Contest Advisory committeeRob Delane is a Special Adviser Agribusiness Expansion to the WA Department of State Development. Previously he was Director General of the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia from 2009 to 2016 and, prior to that, he was Deputy Secretary, Biosecurity Services Group with the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. Mr Delane has nearly four decades of professional experience in agriculture and related fields, including 23 years management experience throughout which he has successfully led significant ongoing organisational transformation to meet emerging business and industry needs. He is chairperson of the Invest West Agribusiness Alliance of over 100 WA-based organisations involved in facilitating successful international investment in WA agriculture. He holds a Master of Science (Agriculture) and a Bachelor of Science (Agriculture). He is a graduate member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and member of the Institute of Public Administration Australia. In 2007, Mr Delane received a Public Service Medal for outstanding service to the agricultural industries and community of Western Australia.

 

The Interviewer

Dr. Liang Fen, Education & Training Manager of AIG
LF: As the Chairman of the Advisory committee of the Alpha Innovation Contest, please tell us your impression.

Rob: Firstly, it was my pleasure to be part of the Alpha innovation competition, which reminded me of my pursuit of innovation during my 40-year career in public service, mostly in agriculture. Successful agriculture requires the bringing together of the best new knowledge, and its use in individual businesses; and one of the things that I really loved about that was so many farmers and other people in the business, were really working together to bring together their own ideas and technology from around the world make agri-businesses successful.

The Alpha competition was like that. We had very different people with their diverse ideas – some very well formed, and some just starting to be formed up, and really looking for clever ways to bring them forward. The Alpha team was able to help them express that innovation and passion and have them learn from that process. The contestants were also able to learn a lot from each other. Innovation is so important! A lot of people think about “invention” as “innovation”, but many great innovators in the world are able to bring together past inventions in new ways, for new applications, and create value for businesses and people. The Alpha competition is able to foster both innovators better than some other competitions – stimulating innovation is really important.

LF. After all these years involvement and leadership in innovation, please tell us something about innovation 

Rob: I prefer a really simple definition of innovation – a change that is has a positive benefit (for businesses, people, communities, governments, etc).

There is a lot of very impressive and important invention in our world – it’s a big world and a lot of smart people and passionate people all over the world inventing things. But there is a lot of opportunity to innovate, which is to take some existing knowledge, existing technology, some new ideas, and apply them in a different way or maybe put the “jigsaw puzzle” pieces together, to create something that people didn’t imagine that is really valuable. So, innovation is really the big opportunity I think, especially in a small country, in a small city. Australia can generally only ever do less than 5% of the R&D (for invention) in the world the invention, right? So roughly 95% of invention will be from outside of Australia; so we need to be very innovative – to learn from all of that invention (and innovation elsewhere) and how to create something locally from all the knowledge and technology.

Entrepreneurship is really how to turn ideas and passion into successful business. There are many passionate people around but, usually, to create and capture customer value you have to be able to create a business for yourself and for others. So that’s what I loved about the Alpha competition – fostering both innovation and entrepreneurship. Alpha enables some really clever people to help other people develop and share their ideas, challenge them about whether have thought of all major options on how to combine their ideas and their passion into some successful way forward. That’s when innovation and entrepreneurship become business. Then you can help create other innovators and entrepreneurs within the people who work with you or are inspired by you.

 LF: We will run Alpha innovation contest 2019 and you will be the Chairman of the advisory committee, what is your expectation and any advice based on last year’s competition 

Rob:  Last year was the first up Alpha competition; it was great in that first competition was very successful. We all learnt a lot – the Alpha team learnt a lot, and the participants learned a lot. So I’m excited about 2019. There will be greater awareness, and more people will come forward with their innovations. I encourage anyone thinking of participating to have a go, but being really clear in your application and presentation what it is you’re trying to achieve. You need to make sure you frame your ideas, including meeting the rules of the Alpha competition, which will make it a lot easier for the judges to look favourably at your proposal. We had very diverse, incredibly diverse, innovations and ideas come to the panel in 2018. I’m sure we’ll have the same again in 2019, and I’m excited about it.

I’ve observed last year’s contest and attended most of the events and has been sitting in a number of panel discussions and competitions evaluations. I think it’s a great platform for young students and academics, but I particularly emphasize to business people and different community to think about the Alpha competition as a great platform for everyone who had a dream about entrepreneurship and who have a dream about bringing their ideas into life.

I think my advice is that you need to challenge yourself in the great adventure that is your life, to integrate all resources you have and see how you can bring your dreams and ideas into reality.   I wish all the best for the competition for the organizers and for those who are going to join the competition.

LF: Please use one sentence to wish and encourage all the Alpha innovation contestants 
Rob: You have to be able to bring it together and explain what you are passionate about clearly to others. Some people say that a dream without a plan is just a wish or hallucination – it will go nowhere. And a plan without a dream might be boring tasks that will not inspire you to go anywhere. So you have to bring them together – and only you can do that – turn your ideas and your passion into a practical way forward. That will be a great innovation and potentially a big success for you.